visit!

My parents came down to Melbourne (and made a trip all the way to Churchill – a 2.5 hours driving trip is no mean feat for those that think a half hour drive to town is far) last week, and needless to say they can now rest easy after seeing for themselves that the place I live in are filled with nice people and nice surroundings. Definitely a super change of pace from the hectic suburbian life in PJ..

When they arrived I was in the middle of a lab session, and I kinda just dashed out of it to see them XDXDXDXD

The best part about having all of them here is that they get to cook for me all the home cooking that I haven’t been getting! XD A big plus point for me is that they brought a lot of the stuff I wanted from KL and that I got to learn some essential cooking tips from my mom.

Thursday night had to be the best cause they cooked dinner for all of us (Hendrix, Nicholas, Sharon and I) and we practically whacked everything, for there wasn’t much left after. =P

On Friday before leaving Churchill for Melbourne, they insisted on taking pics of anything and everything, but thank goodness they had understood my wanting to stay discreet and not be known as “the girl who has jakun parents” (haha okay yes this was really what we agreed on…) they didn’t really go overboard. Except for maybe that one in the front of the campus. XP

The place they were staying at (Quest on Lygon) is actually quite a nice place even though it’s located across the General Cemetery, but the little shops on the street behind are really really quaint! Lots of little cafés, bakeries, milk bars (Australian equivalent to a sundry shop back home), a wine shop and restaurants. What my mom loved most was the curly brackets and lattices that made the houses nearby look really old but pretty in an antique-like manner.

Dinner on Friday night was with Uncle Justin at Richmond. Richmond, being a Vietnamese area, prompted us to have Vietnamese dishes for dinner. Wow their portions are huge, I guess they’re in accordance to the people with larger appetites here. I had something that kinda reminded me of lou shi fun (which I don’t really like very much) but but but the soup was so nice! And there were really wet markets here, and all as Asian as Asian markets can get. The smell of fish, meat, veggies, fruit all in the open street aren’t a common find in Australia where health and hygiene standards are quite something else. It’s not filthy, it just smells =P

After dinner we took the rented car out to Southbank to see the pretty night lights, stroll by the riverside and drop by the Crown. Southbankは本当にキレイです、夜の時に. And the night was pretty cold, but on seeing Trampoline (a pretty popular name in ice cream here) I just thought I had to eat some XDXD



Taking pictures was a real bother cause my camera is really not meant for night time shots unless you have a really steady hand and firm grip, or you rest the camera on a flat surface. We got tired of taking people shots pretty quickly due to that. *sigh*

The Crown was having a Ferrari showcase since the F1 was going to be held on Saturday, so it was really nice to see all the classic Ferraris. Heaps of original F1 merchandise were being promoted at Southbank as well as on Lygon St (it’s the Italian quarter of town) due to the event tomorrow. I shudder to think how Albert Park was going to be the next day.

The next day, we went out to a really good dimsum lunch at Glen Waverley with Uncle Steven and his family. Well, okay, their daughter Stephanie wasn’t there, but his wife and son were there. Family enough? But that’s not the point. The point was that the dimsum was the best I’ve tasted in Melbourne XD I ate heaps (haha I am a glutton and a sucker when it comes to good food so if you don’t see me eating much it pretty much sums up how much I think of the food at the place) I had wanted to meet up with YK after lunch to pass him the database book but then lunch tarried on to about 3 in the afternoon, after which we proceeded to Uncle Steven’s house. Waaaa his house is sooo nice! Although his lawn is dying no thanks to the drought, the interior is so nice! I know my mom really loved the openness and the layout of his house.

Best thing about FoxTel: Spongebob Squarepants, Futurama, The Simpsons! I say this cause that’s most of the shows we watched while we were back at our place in Lygon~



Dinner was with Auntie Ming and Ruby at Stalactites, a Greek foodie place. The food was abit too salty and the waiter was a rather stuck-up terse dude but but but I really like the saganaki (this sounds more Japanese than anything else) and the souvlaki was actually pretty good despite the saltiness – it just needs pita bread. And the dips are really really nice to eat with the pita!

**important point: It’s right opposite the QV building!**

After dinner was the glorious glorious joys of…. Chocolate! Went to Max Brenner’s @ QV (Now you know why QV Building is such an important place). Nothing is a better elixir for cold nights save for nice warm chocolate to warm your insides, get you on high and make you really really 幸せ~